


this is the road to ruin

by and_hera



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Death, Character Study, Dreams, F/M, Post-Episode: s04e15 Self Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:33:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29190846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/and_hera/pseuds/and_hera
Summary: Lincoln holds out his arms and she steps away from the wall and almost collapses into him. He catches her. Lincoln Campbell has always caught her when she falls. Lincoln Campbell helped herfly.or, Daisy and Lincoln in the Framework. Sort of.
Relationships: Lincoln Campbell/Skye | Daisy Johnson
Kudos: 11





	this is the road to ruin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daisyjohnsons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisyjohnsons/gifts).



> yeah i understand that the framework arc was a lot and they probably didn’t have time for a daisylincoln scene so he was dead there too. but god fucking damn. i wanted him to be there.  
> this is heavily inspired by the penumbra podcast (i directly quote it at one point!), specifically the episode “juno steel and the promised land part 2” so jot that down. also this idea came from anna my best friend so!! i love u anna  
> hope you all enjoy <3  
> title from alone together by fall out boy :P

Daisy’s dreaming again. She knows because Lincoln is here, and she’s imagined his death enough times that if it wasn’t real already, it certainly is now.

He’s wearing the stupid fucking cross necklace around his neck. Daisy says, “Lincoln?” and she sounds pathetic. Get it together, dammit, c’mon, Daisy, the world is ending, you don’t have time for dreaming.

Lincoln turns to look at her. It’s funny—Daisy can’t exactly see where they are. It’s all a bit hazy. “Oh, is that me?” he says.

Daisy sighs and crosses her arms over her chest. “What’s happening?” she asks. “Where are we?”

“Now how would I know that?” Lincoln replies. “I’m not in control, here. I’ve never been in control my whole life.”

“Don’t say that.”

“What was it Fitz talked about? Fate? I was never as close to him as you were, but I tried to act like it for you, Daisy.”

“Don’t say that.”

Lincoln raises an eyebrow and smiles in that way he always does when he’s being cheeky. “Sorry.” He shrugs. “Just… speaking your mind.”

Daisy closes her eyes so she doesn’t have to see him but she still sees him on the backs of her eyelids. Not like that’s new, though. God, she couldn’t even see him when he died, and she still watches his death every time she blinks. 

“Where are we?” she says again. “Something—something feels wrong, here. I think something’s wrong.”

“Prob’ly ‘cause there is.”

“What?”

Lincoln laughs, long and loud. He doesn’t laugh like that. He doesn’t. Why is he laughing at her? Daisy doesn’t think he ever did. His teeth look sharper, and it’s kind of hot, but she’s too busy listening to him laugh, laugh, laugh.

“Oh, Daisy,” he says. “Wake up.”

She wakes up in a bathtub, and immediately falls down under the water. Her hair is long. She gasps for breath as soon as she can, and she looks around, and she’s in a fancy bathroom? 

Daisy’s phone—no, not a phone, a beeper, maybe?—buzzes. She looks at it. _Wake up your boyfriend. We’re being called in._

Anything’s possible in the Framework, she thinks, and she gets up as fast as she can.

* * *

Of course he isn’t here. The Framework is supposed to be perfect, so she’s in a long-term relationship with Grant Ward. Of course Lincoln isn’t here.

Some sick, twisted part of Daisy thought… well.

It’s like walking through a dream, being in the Framework. Nothing is real but everything is so painfully real that it feels like getting cold water splashed in your face when you breathe. It feels like a life. Daisy wonders if you could have a life here. 

Probably. Fitz—Not-Fitz—shoots the woman who looks just like AIDA and there’s a life gone.

Daisy is sitting in her cell, beat up and bloodied and bruised. She nods off and Lincoln cups her chin as she wakes up. She’s dreaming, because Lincoln is dead in every version of reality.

“What s’appening,” Daisy says, voice cracking. She was shouting. She’s in a dream, so you’d think that she wouldn’t be in pain. “Lincoln, why are you here?”

Lincoln grins and he still has sharp teeth. _Hot_. “What else is a ghost supposed to do around here?” he asks charmingly. “Sorry, baby. I didn’t know who else to haunt.”

“You had other friends.”

“None that I didn’t kill.”

“It wasn’t- that’s not what-“

“Shh, shh. Don’t hurt yourself.”

Lincoln crouches down beside her once he seems to realize that she isn’t getting up any time soon. He tilts his head sideways. “You’re like a house that’s on fire,” he says. “You’re calling yourself Quake but you’re shaking yourself to pieces, not anyone else.”

Daisy juts her chin out like a kid would when questioned by authorities. She’s always been a little childish. “I wear my gauntlets,” she says. “I’m holding together.”

“But you aren’t holding on, are you?” Lincoln clicks his tongue. “You’ve got no attachments left, do you?”

Daisy grits her teeth. “I have the team. Stop it, Lincoln, what the hell?”

Lincoln smiles and shakes his head. “You don’t get it, do you,” he says. “You _left_ them. You ran away again.”

“Because of _you_!” Daisy shouts, and she stands up, clinging to the wall she was sitting against for support. Why is there a wall here? She can’t quite see any other location in this place. “It was your fault. You died and I had to- I had to-“

“Run?”

Daisy glares at him. She feels a tear run down her cheek and hopes the stains won’t be noticeable when she wakes up, because she can’t let them know that they broke her.

“They won’t break you,” Lincoln says. He steps closer to her, and _God_ she wants to be held by him again. “They can’t break you, because you’ve been broken for a long, long time now, Dais.”

“I know,” Daisy whispers. “I know, I know, I know.” It doesn’t sound like she’s saying words. If she pretends she isn’t saying words, she can pretend that she isn’t giving in.

Lincoln holds out his arms and she steps away from the wall and almost collapses into him. He catches her. Lincoln Campbell has always caught her when she falls. Lincoln Campbell helped her _fly_.

“What are you doing here, Daisy,” he mutters into her hair. Daisy realizes that it isn’t long like it has been. It’s got the cheap hair dye in it and it’s only to her shoulders. “Why the hell won’t you let me go?”

Daisy asks, “What?” because she doesn’t understand what he’s talking about, it’s Lincoln, it’s her boyfriend who she loves and he loves her and she didn’t get to _tell him_ -

She falls. Lincoln let go of her without warning and she collapses to the ground. When she looks up, he’s smiling again, all teeth and no laughter. He was laughing when he called her over the comms. Making his stupid fucking jokes and then he died and he couldn’t ever find the time to be serious ever and Daisy misses him so much.

“You leave everything and you burn everything you touch to the ground,” Lincoln says, crouching just low enough so that his voice reaches her ears. “I don’t know why you expect me to want to see you again.”

Daisy wakes up in her cell. She wipes her face off and though she succeeds at removing the tear stains she just moves more blood around. Well, she’ll do what she has to.

* * *

“Lincoln Campbell. Think of it. You can live a peaceful life, have kids, grow old together with no memory of what's happened here or there, no regrets, just each other.”

* * *

Dreams are a funny thing. Anything’s possible inside the Framework. You’re trapped in your own head. Anything is possible.

Daisy’s standing against the wall again. She feels like she’s going to pass out. Lincoln’s in front of her, and he’s got a wall of his own. He’s leaning against it with his arms crossed like he’s perfectly comfortable where he is.

“Lincoln,” she says, because she might as well state the obvious.

“You keep calling me that,” he says. “But I don’t know who that is. That’s an old name. It’s been a long time.”

“Just a few months, really,” Daisy says softly.

Lincoln rolls his eyes. “I don’t know who you are,” he says, but he says it like he couldn’t be bothered to figure it out. “I mean, you look and act and talk a lot like Daisy Johnson. But you’re not her.”

“I’m not?”

He shakes his head nonchalantly. “You’re a storm in the shape of a person,” Lincoln says. “You’re an earthquake being held together by gauntlets and skin and you want nothing more than to break.”

“I don’t want to break,” Daisy says weakly. “Lincoln, I don’t want to die.”

Lincoln raises an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”

“Of course I’m not sure. But God, I’m trying to be.”

“That doesn’t sound like Daisy Johnson, either.”

“Well, maybe Daisy Johnson died when you did and I’m just what’s left behind. Just trying my best to act and sound like her even though I’m not the same person and I’ll never be.”

Lincoln says, “Fake it ‘till you make it.”

“Faking it is all I have left,” Daisy says desperately. 

Lincoln moves from where he’s leaning against the wall and walks over to her and cups her face in his hands. “You want to live?” he asks.

“Yes. Fuck, Lincoln, I don’t know if I want to live, but I sure as hell don’t want to die.”

He leans down and kisses her. Daisy didn’t think she’d ever feel that again, but here she is. She kisses him and she loves him so fucking much. She never got to tell him that. She tries to now.

Lincoln pulls back just an inch, and says, “And I think this is where we part, Daisy.”

Daisy cries. She knows she’s crying. “I wanted you to be here,” she says. “I wanted you to be here so bad. I wanted to tell you. I wanted to say goodbye. I wanted to do it right.”

“Shh. Listen! Pull yourself together. You’re about to step into that big, mean world, and you’re going to have to match its meanness if you want to survive.”

Daisy nods. “I’m so sorry,” she says. Lincoln smiles and it looks like a real smile. 

* * *

Daisy decides that she misses Lincoln, but she hates AIDA a whole lot more. 

She lives. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! please leave comments and kudos if you enjoyed!  
> the line i quoted from the penumbra podcast is “Shh. Listen! You’re about to step into that big, mean world, and you’re going to have to match its meanness if you want to survive.”


End file.
